


Bubblegum

by Yikes (CoralFlower)



Category: The Lorax (2012)
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2018-08-09 21:44:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7818397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoralFlower/pseuds/Yikes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“‘m sorry, mom.” You say it quietly, barely moving your lips, like the more you open your mouth the more words she can shove in it that you didn’t mean but she knows you said.<br/>“Sorry, I don’t hear mumblers. I named you Onceler, not Mumbler, sweetie.” Her tone is honey sweet with something sharp in the background.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Your face in the mirrored wall behind her looks so obviously guilty to your eyes that you can’t help ducking your head, inadvertently confirming what she may not even have already known for sure. She heaves a sigh, a disappointed one, and leans back, shifting her weight from one hip to the other, and the sudden release of all that pressure from her body language douses your anger in a single second. 

Guilt wells up in your stomach. You were so convinced, so certain that you were going to fight her on it this time, but you don’t think you have the courage anymore to do that right now, and you aren’t even sure anymore that it would be the right thing to do.

“Oncie, honestly... I just don’t know what to say anymore.” You sort of twitch, and start fiddling with your gloves, looking down at the floor. She snaps her fingers and your head snaps up reflexively.  
“Look at me when I am talking to you, child.” You shudder all over and wring your hands, like your life is a dishrag and stress is water, like you can grasp it in your hands and fix it yourself.  
“‘m sorry, mom.” You say it quietly, barely moving your lips, like the more you open your mouth the more words she can shove in it that you didn’t mean but she knows you said.  
“Sorry, I don’t hear mumblers. I named you Onceler, not Mumbler, sweetie.” Her tone is honey sweet with something sharp in the background. It’s hard for you to speak but you somehow say it louder,  
“Sorry, mom. I said sorry.” She huffs, and crosses her arms, and you feel yourself cringing as you wrack your brain for anything else you’ve done, something else to apologise for.  
“Are you, though?” You flinch, and your face in the mirror behind her looks so ridiculously surprised-- what if she thinks you’re faking it, what if you ARE faking it-- that you get embarrassed about that and duck your head again, placing a hand on the back of your neck and letting your elbow hang down in front of you like you’ve caught a bug there or something.  
“I-- I am.”

She shifts her weight to her other hip again and gives you this look, this are-you-shitting-me, I-can’t-believe-you’ve-somehow-survived-this-long sort of look.  
“Really? I find that hard to believe.” Your voice slowly rises in pitch as you frantically try to defend yourself, ‘no mom’ ‘really mom’ ‘for real mom’ ‘yes mom,’ and she cuts across you like two teenagers crossing through a cornfield that’s between them and the swimming hole.

She’s taller than you, really, because she can make you feel so small, and she acts like a tall person, with a tall personality and a tall mind and a tall taste in everything. You end up running, like you always do, holing up in your office and locking the door, staying there and getting more and more drunk as the night passes without you, getting more and more drunk as your life passes without you.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a year later, i return.

Ice. You don’t want to feel.  
You spin. You fiddle with levers and watch rain on your windows for some time. You fiddle with levers to pull blinds over the vast expanses of glass, indescribable as anything but windows, because window on its own already has enough connotations for your tastes.

Ice. Your door slams open, and you look over at her, resplendent in your new suit, in the bubblegum calm of this suddenly achieved high.  
“Heya, mom.” She begins stalking up the stairs, and you yawn enourmously and stretch exaggeratedly. Right as she gets to the stop of the spiral, you ‘accidentally’ hit the height lever with your foot and lower your office block down to the floor. She shouts at you, and you shrug, openly giggling as you pull the stairs lever and lower her down to where you are.

Ice. You are ice, and she is wind, and all she can do is cool you down more. She has no more power to shape you or to break you, and that is why you put your feet up on the desk, that is why you level your best lorax-defeating smirk at her, that is why you put your hands up behind your head like your desk chair isn’t the most ergonomic monstrosity in existence, and that is why you just stay that way while she shouts herself out in front of your desk.

When she appears to be done, you raise an eyebrow, wait half a moment, and then take your feet off your desk and lean forwards, placing your elbows where your feet were and chinhands-ing.  
“Well. I figure I may as well wear something I like, since it was my invention and it’s my money, ya dig?”

She practically shakes, and you’re detached enough to find it hilarious. You raise that eyebrow a little bit higher, and take an elbow off the desk to put your hand on your hip.  
“You--”  
“I?”  
“Yes, you! You listen to me, you little--”  
“Little?” You don’t even bother to stand up; you feel like it would kind of be overkill.

She does the point-and-threaten thing, trying her damnedest to get up in your face, but you made your desk this long for a reason, and she isn’t tall enough to get close. Your raised eyebrow climbs ever higher into the ultimate perfection that is your hair.  
“Are you disrespecting me, Oncie--”  
“Yes. Most definitely. I am.” Her jaw drops. “...Get out of my office.” You look at her across your desk, using your best douchebag face, and say, “Capiche?”

She’s so startled that she just scoffs at you, turns on her heel, and gets the hell out of there, and you are left with a decidedly un-ice-like feeling, one that’s warm, and nice, and euphoric.


End file.
